Hermine Reuss older line

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Princess Hermine von Schoenaich-Carolath

Hermine, Princess Reuss older line (born December 17, 1887 in Greiz , † August 7, 1947 in Frankfurt (Oder) ) was widowed Hermine von Schoenaich-Carolath, the second wife of the former German Emperor and Prussian King Wilhelm II in his Dutch Exile. Among the supporters of the Hohenzollern monarchy , she was called Empress Hermine .

family

Hermine was the fourth daughter of Heinrich XXII. , Prince Reuss older line (1846–1902), and Princess Ida (1852–1891), a born princess of Schaumburg-Lippe . Hermine lost her mother at the age of three, and her upbringing was completed in the house of Grand Duchess Luise von Baden (1838–1923), the daughter of Kaiser Wilhelm I. Her brother Heinrich XXIV. (1878–1927) was from 1902 to 1918 the last ruling Prince Reuss of the older line, but was under reign because of physical and mental ailments.

Princess Hermine Reuss elderly married Prince Johann Georg von Schoenaich-Carolath (1873–1920) on January 7, 1907 and moved in with him at Saabor Castle in the Grünberg district in Silesia . This connection resulted in five children, including the daughter Henriette, who was later allowed to come to the Netherlands with her mother. Johann Georg died of tuberculosis in 1920 .

"Empress" Hermione

Hermione had been an admirer of Kaiser Wilhelm II from an early age, had already hung a picture of him in her girls' room and had collected articles and books about him. When Empress Auguste Viktoria died in Doorn in April 1921, she sent the widower a condolence letter written by her youngest son. The emperor then invited the son and she to visit his Dutch exile at Haus Doorn .

At the beginning of September 1921, an airplane with two men on board crashed in the park of Saabor Castle, the pilot Antonius Raab and the American journalist Siegfried Dunbar Weyer. This “crash” was a deception because Weyer was a correspondent for the International News Service and wanted to find out whether the rumors were true that the abdicated Kaiser Wilhelm II wanted to marry the lady of the castle. Hermione asked the two men into the house, where Weyer discovered a photo of Wilhelm II on the piano. He felt his suspicions were confirmed and published the report that the couple were planning their wedding. This press release is said to have put pressure on the former emperor, who then became engaged to the princess von Schoenaich-Carolath four weeks later.

On November 5, 1922, Hermine and Wilhelm married in Haus Doorn. Wilhelm proved to be more reverent and amiable to Hermione than he had been to the late first wife Auguste Viktoria. The relationship with the Emperor's children turned out to be rather difficult for Hermione. Hermione ran a strict regime in House Doorn and also took care of the administration of the house.

Hermine and Wilhelm II in the Doorn house (1933)

The former emperor and Hermine attached great importance to etiquette in Doorn. Therefore, after the wedding, she was addressed with Imperial Highness , some also with Majesty and referred to as Empress Hermine .

When her brother died childless in 1927, Hermine and her sisters took over the Burgk Castle in the Thuringian Vogtland, but in 1933 ceded it to her sister Ida, the wife of Prince Christoph Martin zu Stolberg-Roßla . In 1929 she founded the Herminen Relief Organization , which took care of people in need and was very popular during the great unemployment caused by the global economic crisis in the Weimar Republic .

In Germany, Hermine was in close contact with monarchist and nationalist circles. She promoted relevant organizations and took part in political events. She also hoped that the NSDAP would restore the monarchy. To this end, she arranged two visits by Hitler's confidante Hermann Göring to Doorn in 1931 and 1932 . She welcomed the seizure of power very much. It wasn't until 1935 that Hermione gave up on her hopes.

However, Hermine was a great admirer of the Jewish writer Jakob Wassermann and had read all of his works. Even after these were banned by the Nazis, she spoke of how much she valued Aquarius.

After the death of Wilhelm II in 1941 Hermine returned to her residence at Saabor Castle in Lower Silesia. At the end of the war in 1945, she fled the Red Army to her sister in Roßla in the Harz Mountains. After the arrest by the Soviet occupying forces , she lived in Frankfurt an der Oder under privileged conditions under the supervision of the Soviet military administration. She lived with a Ukrainian family in a camp for displaced persons. The first news about her after the war was over was that she had been attacked and robbed in the camp. According to the death certificate, she died in Frankfurt (Oder) in 1947 of heart failure caused by an almond abscess and was buried in the ancient temple of the Sanssouci Park in Potsdam , where the emperor's first wife was already lying. The burial she wanted in a sarcophagus next to Kaiser Wilhelm II in his mausoleum in Doorn did not materialize.

See also

literature

  • Hermine Princess of Prussia: "The Kaiser and I". My life with Kaiser Wilhelm II in exile. Published from the Dutch translated and commented by Jens-Uwe Brinkmann. MatrixMedia-Verlag, Göttingen 2008, ISBN 978-3-932313-26-4 .
  • Friedrich Wilhelm Prince of Prussia : The House of Hohenzollern 1918–1945. Langen Müller, Munich et al. 1985, ISBN 3-7844-2077-X .
  • Friedhild den Toom, Sven Michael Klein: Hermine. The second wife of Wilhelm II. (= Association for Greizer History eV, Association messages 15, ZDB -ID 2088917-3 ). Association for Greizer History eVua, Greiz 2007.
  • Louis Ferdinand Freiherr von Massenbach: The Hohenzollern then and now. The royal line in Brandenburg-Prussia. The princely line in Hohenzollern. 21st revised edition. Verlag Tradition und Leben, Bonn 2009, ISBN 978-3-9800373-0-3 .

Web links

Commons : Hermine Reuss older line  - collection of images

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Christine von Brühl: Grace in the Brandenburg sand. Structure Digital, 2015, ISBN 978-3-841-20879-8 ( limited preview in Google Book Search).
  2. ^ S. Dunbar Weyer committed suicide in April 1927 by shooting himself in a compartment of the train from Bremen to Berlin. In a suicide note, he cited a nervous breakdown as the reason for his suicide after he had not been on vacation for seven years. Borger Daily Herald (Borger, Tex.), Vol. 1, No. 127, Ed. 1, Wednesday April 20, 1927
  3. ↑ Viktoria Luise von Prussia , in: A life as a daughter of the emperor. 1965. Göttinger Verlagsanstalt, Hannover 1979, ISBN 3-87267-020-4
  4. ↑ cf. Reinhold Schneider : Willingness to stand. In: Martin Kohlrausch (ed.): Velvet and steel. Kaiser Wilhelm II in the judgment of his contemporaries. Landtverlag, Berlin 2006, ISBN 3-938844-05-1 , p. 390.
  5. ↑ Gerd Heinrich (historian) : History of Prussia. State and dynasty. Propylaeen, Frankfurt et al. 1981, ISBN 3-549-07620-7 , p. 516.
  6. ^ Paul Bonheim: Exil-Tagebuch de Steeg 1942.
  7. ↑ https://www.moz.de/nachrichten/brandenburg/artikel-ansicht/dg/0/1/1694525/
  8. ↑ Wilhelm II's widow attacked . In: New Time. Organ of the Styrian Socialist Party . 3rd year, no. 27 , February 4, 1947, p. 3 ( onb.ac.at ).
  9. ^ Preussen.de - Hermine Schönaich-Carolath, part 2. In: www.preussen.de. Archived from the original on January 5, 2011 ; accessed on December 28, 2019 .
  10. ↑ Karin Feuerstein-Praßer: The German Empresses . Pustet Verlag, Regensburg 1887, ISBN 978-3-7917-1545-2 , p. 259 .
personal data
SURNAME Hermine Reuss older line
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Schoenaich-Carolath, Hermine von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German princess and the second wife of Wilhelm II.
DATE OF BIRTH December 17, 1887
PLACE OF BIRTH Greiz
DATE OF DEATH August 7, 1947
Place of death Frankfurt (Oder)